SUNDAY’S GOSPEL – John 2:13-22: Sunday 32C Lateran Basilica

SUNDAY’S GOSPEL – John 2:13-22: Sunday 32C Lateran Basilica

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.    In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.     Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.  He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”  His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”  The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?”  Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?”  But he was speaking of the temple of his body.   After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

POINTERS FOR PRAYER

1. Through his symbolic gesture Jesus proclaimed that the place of God’s presence was not a building but “the temple of his body”. But we are the Body of Christ … when have you been particularly aware of people (yourself or others) as being sacred, temples of the presence of God ?

2. It was only after the resurrection that the disciples realized the full significance of what Jesus had said and done. When has hindsight helped you to see meaning in what happened to you?

3. We also want our institutions to reflect the presence of God. Perhaps in this time when aspects of our institutions are crumbling down you can identify with the Jews who were horrified at the suggestion that the Temple would be destroyed. What is it like for you to live in a time when some of the things you had taken for granted are collapsing? Where do you see the hand of God in this?

4. “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit but they can be abused as well as cared for. Much of the time most of us pay little attention to our bodies. We take them for granted. At times we may abuse them. Has caring for your body made any difference to your life?

Today, we celebrate the cathedral church of the bishop of Rome, the basilica of St John Lateran. The building itself is remarkable — for example the main doors are from the ancient Senate House in the Roman Forum and there is a very beautiful cloister attached to the cathedral. To be candid, it must, of course, seem strange to remember a building, however important in another country! But there is more to it than that.

In celebrating the cathedral of the bishop of Rome, we are marking our communion in the Catholic Church under the leadership of the Holy Father. The appointed readings are very helpful and would inspire deeper reflection and discussion.